


Here and Gone Again: the Dwarf-King's Tale

by psyche_girl



Category: The Hobbit - All Media Types, The Lord of the Rings - All Media Types
Genre: Dwarf/Hobbit culture clash, Fantastic Racism, Gandalf is a Troll, Lots of book/fandom in-jokes, M/M, The Hobbit Done Backwards (while wearing high-heels), This fic is 100 percent guaranteed to contain no Alfred, Thorin has a chip on his shoulder the size of the Lonely Mountain
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-01
Updated: 2015-01-01
Packaged: 2018-03-04 17:48:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,560
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3077096
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/psyche_girl/pseuds/psyche_girl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>One evening in early summer TA 2941, Thorin Thrain's son, called Oakenshield, was interrupted by thirteen very unexpected Hobbits knocking at his forge door.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Here and Gone Again: the Dwarf-King's Tale

In a hole in the ground, there lived a Dwarf-King.

It was not a very nice hole. Some (including the Dwarf-King himself) might have tried to call it something like a “cave” out of politeness, but unfortunately to anyone looking at it there could be very little doubt about what it really was: a nasty, dank, smelly, worm-ridden hole, stuck with sharp rocks and set in unstable, muddy silt-soil, as different from the cavernous mountain halls of the Dwarf-King's childhood as could possibly be imagined. It was only one of many similar so-called “caves” filled by the refugees of Erebor in the foothills of Ered Luin, dug into and around and under the half-collapsed, lode-barren, flooded mountain of Belegost. The Dwarf-King (whose proper name was Thorin, called Oakenshield, of the Eldest Line of Durin) was honestly quite lucky he was not living underwater, considering how often the tunnels in and around Belegost became flooded. The whole place smelled of nasty ditch-water, and the lone habitable room served as forge and kitchen and bedroom and guest-hall as one, and was drafty in winter and hot in summer, and had a tendency to sizzle all the fires out whenever the wind blew the wrong way.

Still, it may not have been a _nice_ hole, but it was his, and Thorin was proud of it. For Thorin was a King-in-Exile, and that meant a great many comforts must be gone without. Instead of comfort, Kings-in-Exile have to rely on their pride, and this Dwarf-King Thorin Oakenshield had a great deal of pride, and a truly, utterly terrible temper.

Perhaps these details will go some way to explaining the events that occurred one day in late spring TA 2941, when Thorin Oakenshield was interrupted just as he was settling in to finish his fifth commission of the evening by a faint, scarcely-audible tap on the door.

\---

Thorin opened the door to find a strange creature standing on his doorstep. It was like no being he had ever laid eyes on before, quite small (even smaller than a Dwarf) and dressed in thin raggedy velvet that hung slightly loose around the font and backside, as if the creature had once been very stout and had lost a very great deal of weight in a very terribly short time. It had no beard, which made Thorin at first suspect it to be a man-child, but it was proportioned like an adult, and out of the bottom of its trousers poked a pair of quite the largest and hairiest bare feet that Thorin had ever seen.

“Hello, sir,” it said. Its voice was high and slightly piping, and trembled a little, as if with fear. It kept its eyes fixed very firmly on the ground just in front of Thorin’s boots. “Good evening! My name is Holman Greenhand, of Westfarthing.”

It held out a hand.

Thorin stared at it.

“…What?” he said.

“Good evening,” the small figure repeated doggedly. “Are the others here yet?”

“What?” Thorin repeated.

“The others?” It raised its voice slightly, as if suspecting Thorin of deafness, or perhaps idiocy. “Have they arrived?”

“ _What_ others?”

“Why, _all_ the others, of course!”

Right. This was getting him nowhere.

“Did you want to buy a sword?” Thorin demanded, at a loss for why else a stranger would be lurking by his forge at this time of evening. It was not – quite – nightfall yet, but the day was certainly very far advanced, well past the time when any normal Man or Dwarf would be out wandering.

“Oh! Good heavens, no, certainly not! No, I’m a _respectable_ Hobbit, thank you _very_ much indeed, sir. Gracious! The likes of _me_ , carry a _sword_? Shameful, shameful…” The creature – a ‘Hobbit’, apparently – edged back slightly from Thorin’s doorway, shaking its head and muttering to itself as if deeply shocked.

“…Right.”

The Hobbit waited, blinking slowly up at Thorin out of two disconcertingly large, bright eyes. Eventually, it put its head on one side and frowned at him.

“Well?”

“Well, what?”

“Well, aren’t you going to invite me in?”

Thorin shut the door in its face.

\---

Not five minutes later, there was another knock.

Thorin swung the door open (in a considerably worse temper than before, he had _just_ gotten the fire back up to the proper temperature) to find a second creature staring back at him, even smaller and grimier than the first. This one was wearing a long lacy skirt that looked like it had been put through a stone-mill, and a bonnet with squashed, half-rotted flowers on the top.

“Hello, sir Dwarf. My name is Lobelia Bracegirdle, lately of the Northfarthing. I bid you good evening.”

It curtsied at him, and extended a hand.

Thorin stared down at its impatient, slightly condescending expression, and wondered if there had perhaps been any strange mushrooms buried in his food recently. Unlikely, since the last meal he’d eaten (a day and a half ago) had been cold bread and water, but it would definitely explain a lot.

“He doesn’t shake hands,” piped up a voice from the left. To Thorin’s considerable displeasure, he saw that the first little creature had not gone away, but had instead settled down on the ground beside his doorway and was smoking a pipe.

So _that_ was where the awful smell was coming from.

Lobelia responded to this proclamation as if learning that Thorin made a habit of swallowing babies whole.

“He _doesn’t shake hands_!” And, yes, apparently it’s voice could go _even higher than that_. Thorin winced, and resisted the urge to cover one ear. Mahal’s _beard_ , these things sounded worse than Elves.

“What are you doing at my forge?” He demanded, glaring down at them.

“What am _I_ doing?” Lobelia gasped, affronted. “Well, I like _that_. No manners at _all_!”

“He prob’ly can’t help it, missus,” Holman interjected, waving his pipe toward Thorin’s face, “ _Dwarves_ , y’know. You’ve heard what they say about them, and between you and me-” he glanced at Thorin and lowered his voice to a very carrying whisper “-this one doesn’t seem very bright. Best just to sit outside and wait until the Thain gets here.”

Thorin knew _exactly_ what they said about Dwarves. Thorin had been forced to listen to what they said about Dwarves for the last eighteen bloody decades as he tried to scrape a living for himself and his vagrant people, trading ironwork with peasants, Men, and even _Elves_ to try to make ends meet, and he was in no mood to hear any more of it.

Thorin slammed his door shut a bit more vigorously this time, wishing that it was made of something more substantial than an ill-fitting, half-rotted plank of wood, and that he might be able to get some actual work done before this Thain person arrived.

\---

The next knock brought not one little figure but _three_ , two of which were so tiny that the tops of their curly heads barely reached to the bottom of Thorin’s leather smith’s apron. The nearest one, the shortest (and they might not be man-children, but if these three weren’t below the age of majority then Thorin would shave off his beard) stepped forward and held out a hand smartly.

“Hello, sir. Good evening. I’m Halfred Gamgee-”

“Yes, thank you!” Thorin tried not to roar, and failed spectacularly judging by the way all the Hobbits jumped about a foot in the air. “What are you all doing at my _house_?”

“Thain Baggins said this was the place to meet,” said the largest of the three. A tiny frown appeared in the middle of her pale small forehead.

“Ah! There you are, Miss Primula!” came a voice from behind him. Thorin turned to find the other two big (although ‘big’ was plainly a relative term) Hobbits still waiting by his doorstep, a veritable cloud of pipe-smoke surrounding their tiny figures. “I do b’lieve there’s been some mix-up. You young ones just come and wait by me, you do. Maste- _Thain_ Baggin’s’ll be along soon enough, an’ he’ll sort the whole matter out, mark my words.”

Primula’s face acquired an ugly sort of twist at the word ‘young,’ but she stepped back obediently and took up a sullen seat to the left of the door, pulling the other two tiny ones along with her. Thorin was reminded overwhelmingly of little Gimli, Gloin’s son, being told that he was too small to wield his father’s great-axe.

None of the three tiny Hobbits had pipes to smoke, although Thorin did catch a glimpse of the first Hobbit passing his pipe over to Primula before, with considerable vexation, he slammed the door shut again.

\---

By nine o’clock, there was quite a crowd of tiny, mysterious so-called ‘Hobbits’ camped in front of his forge door, and Thorin was quite out of sorts.

“Right,” he snarled, after being interrupted for the seventh time (“Hello, sir. My name is Enco Chubb, and this is my sister Daisy-”) “Enough! I don’t know what you lot are doing here, but by Durin’s beard you can all do it somewhere away from my door.”

“Well,” stammered the first Hobbit, who now had the two littlest baby-Hobbits tucked inside his coat, “I, er, I s’pose we could wait down the lane a ways, like. Only there’s not really any other shelter nearby, y’see, an’ what with the little ones an’ the wind comin’ on-”

“I don’t care,” Thorin snapped, ruthlessly ignoring the wobbly big-eyed gaze of the two tiny younglings peeking around Holman’s shoulders. “If you’re waiting for this Thain person, then go away and come back after you’ve found him.”

“Very well, sir,” said Holman reluctantly, and the first few hobbits were just starting to move away from his gate when the sky gave a great thunder-clap and rain started bucketing down.

One of the tiny Hobbits sneezed.

Thorin said the filthiest word of Khudzul he knew, and swung the door open to let them all in.

\---

Fifteen minutes later, he was convinced he had never made a worse decision.

Thorin had, fortunately, put out his forge after the third interruption, or the destruction might have involved actual fiery death, rather than the mere fiery destruction of _every bloody piece of treasure he bloody well owned_.

His collection of gemstones, some of them imported all the way from the far Eastern Ocean, had been tipped over and stamped into the muddy floor underfoot amongst the branch-ends, some of them possibly for good considering the holes that the stoutest Hobbit had taken to digging in the floor with his toes. Two of the little Hobbits were playing spilikins with his gold nuggets, the third had started gnawing on the silver and gold-inlaid gauntlets that were all he had left of his grandmother's battle-armor, and half his collection of finished swords had been propped in one corner for use as clothes-horses for all of the muddy Hobbit-coats, and were now dripping with water that was sure to rust them to ruins. Thorin had only barely rescued three other swords, his best hammer, and four separate sets of fire-tongs from being used to juggle with, and as he turned around after grabbing his sister's throwing-axe (now hopelessly blunted) away from tiny little Primula for the third time, he saw another of the big Hobbits go stumbling sideways and dump a diamond-patterned chainmail surcoat, the collar alone of which had taken Thorin nearly three months to complete, two daggers, and his second-best cloak all neatly over into the hot coals of his forge along with its pipe-weed.

Right. That was _it_.

Thorin took the handle of the largest battle-axe he could reach, swung around, and drove the blade four inches deep into the middle of his own front door.

All the noise died down _immediately_.

“Who ARE YOU?” Thorin bellowed. The Hobbits let out a chorus of terrified squeaking. “And WHAT ARE YOU ALL DOING IN MY FORGE?”

Terrified tiny white faces stared back at him dumbly, with totally vacant expressions.

“Oh, my apologies!” sputtered the tallest of them, who had ducked through the door a full minute after the others looking like he’d been dragged backwards through a mud-pile. “I’ve quite forgotten to make proper introductions!”

As if moving according to an unheard whistle, the Hobbits all sprang into motion, tripping over themselves and his forge and the furniture until they were arranged more-or-less in a line. Tallest-Hobbit moved down the line pointing.

“This is Donnamira Boffin and Gundabella Broadbelt, Lobelia and Berula Bracegirdle; Adalbert and Egbert of North- and Westfarthing, Enco Chubb; Holman Gamlee and Hamfast, and Halfred Gamgee – a cousin of mine and two cousins of his - Primula of the Brandybucks, and, of course, Daisy.”

Thorin squinted.

…Which one was Daisy, again?

“And you are?” he demanded, because Tallest-Hobbit was still standing in front of him, staring expectantly as if waiting for Thorin to do something.

“Oh! Oh- me. I mean, I. I am- my, er, my name is Bilbo Baggins,” he said. Like the others, his voice was very high and trembling, but unlike the others, he at least seemed to be willing to look Thorin in the eye. “I’m- well, I’m suppose I’m the, the th-Thain of the Hobbits, now. Er.”

Thorin frowned. So _this_ was a Thain – funny, from the way the others talked, he’d been expecting something a little more impressive.

“…Is that like a King?”

The Th-Thain (and what sort of name for a leader was that, anyway?) made what could only be described as a _squeaking_ noise, and tipped over sideways. “Oh! Oh my good green gracious goddess, _no_ , nothing of the sort! Nothing like a _King_!”

“Bilbo isn’t a _real_ Thain, anyway,” sniffed Lobelia. “It’s not like he’s a _Took_.”

“Yes he _is so!_ ” shrilled the bright-haired small one, the fidgety child that reminded Thorin of Gimli. “His mum was a Took, she was the best Took there ever _was!_ An’ anyway, all the _other_ Tooks is dead now. Th’Old Took died, and the Thain after that died and the one after that died and the one after that died and Baby Paladin died and the Took Elders died and my Mum’s Da died and my Mum’s Da’s Mum and all my Mum’s Da’s cousins and my cousins and my second-cousins and my second-second-second-cousins-“

“Yes, _thank_ you Primula,” said the Thain. It was an ill sign to see that this Hobbit-leader – who had apparently only gained his position due to a truly spectacular run of dynastic upheaval – commanded such poor respect from his own people that children were allowed to interrupt him. The more Thorin saw of these Hobbits, the less he liked them.

The Thain turned back to Thorin, an apologetic look in his eyes. “I don’t really _rule_ anybody, you see. It’s not a very _grand_ position, or anything like that. I’m supposed to- well, to organize the Bounders, only there aren’t any anymore, and the Shirrifs, only there aren’t any of those, and to- to keep us safe. To keep the Shire safe. Only there isn’t any Shire, and there are hardly any of _us_ left to organize. I’m only, well, I suppose- oh, dear, it’s awful, but ever since Michel Delving burned there really _is_ no one else, so I’m- well, I suppose I speak for the Hobbits. The other Hobbits, I mean. Er.”

…That sounded like a King to Thorin.

“ _Which_ other Hobbits?” Please, Mahal, let there not be more of these creatures.

Thain Baggins blinked. “Well. Er. All of them? The problem, you see, Master Oakenshield, is that there really aren’t very many Hobbits left to speak for. That’s why we’ve come to see you. We, well…We wanted to hire an Orc-killer, and according to Gandalf, you’re the best there is.”

“Aha,” said Thorin. “ _Now_ I know who is to blame.”

\---

Thorin had run into Gandalf about a month ago at a small, dark pub in Bree, where he had come to sell his swords - to very little profit, as there was more call in Bree for lockpicks than for great-swords and battle-axes. Thorin had been busy eating his supper, and wishing the footpads at the table beside him would make up their minds whether to attack him or not so that he could take one hand off of either his axe or his spoon, when all the light was blocked out above him by a ridiculously tall, grey-robed, lunatic figure.

“Thorin Oakenshield!” the figure boomed. “As I live and breathe!”

“…At your service,” Thorin responded warily, when the figure didn’t seem inclined to go away.

The stranger’s presence had, at least, scared off the would-be thieves at the next table over, so Thorin could now apply himself to busily swallowing his bread and his stew at the same time. He tucked in with great determination; the sooner he finished eating, the sooner he had an excuse to get away from this strange and ridiculous person.

“Well, I never! To think that I, Gandalf the Grey, should ever live to see the son of Thrain offer me his service like some common traveler!”

Thorin’s head shot up so quickly he nearly upended his bowl of stew.

“You have news of my father?”

“Oh, yes, I ran into him down near Mordor once about eight years ago,” Gandalf said absently, pulling out the spare chair at the table. “He seemed quite well at the time, and told me several rather amusing jokes, or, at least, I think he did. _Durins_ , you know, you never can tell how much is madness and how much is merely strong personality.”

Thorin ground his teeth together. The gold-madness of his grandfather Thror had been a tragedy, the ruination of a once-great father, leader, and Dwarf, and had been made sport of in various intolerable ways by various intolerable people every year of Thorin’s very long and very inglorious life. It had also been used by Elves and Men alike to explain away the calamity of the dragon – as if Thror’s illness had made Smaug’s assault somehow _their fault_.

What is worse, and what Thorin suspected Gandalf knew, Thrain was by this time almost certainly dead. When Thorin's King-father had left to journey to Erebor fifteen years ago, no one, including Thrain, had particularly expected him to come back. You don't, usually, when you're off to fight a dragon.

Still, Thorin was selfishly glad to hear Gandalf's news. It would have been more noble by far had King Thrain lost his life trying to reclaim Erebor, and Thrain really must have gotten truly embarrassingly lost to wind up near Mordor, but whatever death the King had found on the road near Mordor was no doubt kinder than the death that would have met him (and his followers, and whatever poor Men lived nearby) at the claws of the fire-drake Smaug.

And what is one more shameful failure, after all, Thorin thought sourly, to a line so littered with shame already?

“Yes, I knew your father, and your grandfather and your great-grandfather before him, at Erebor, and Moria, and then again at Moria…” Gandalf continued. “Dear me, it does seem to be a habit of your family to die fighting stupidly over lost causes, doesn’t it?”

“What do you _want_ ,” Thorin gritted out.

“Well, as it happens, if you’re feeling the urge to continue the family business, I do believe I’ve come across a lost cause that would suit you rather well.”

“My father is both a greater and stupider Dwarf than me,” Thorin said sharply. “I have no intention of throwing my life away on the pipe-dream of defeating that dragon.”

Thorin could admit privately, to himself, at least, that this was perhaps not entirely true. The urge to win back his family's homeland was strong, after all, and, more importantly, his people were starving. If there had been a chance of stealing away some of Erebor's treasure quietly, without disturbing the dragon… but there was no way. And he knew better than to expect help from Men, or Elves, or grey-robed Istari.

“Good!” Gandalf harruphed, and thumped the table with his staff. “For now that I have seen the way affairs lie in the West, I have a far more pressing matter for you to throw your life away on. Tell me, King Thorin, would you be willing to battle some Orcs?”

Thorin drew in a quick breath through his nose, and forced himself not to shudder. Orcs...the word brought back memories of hands tacky with grime and black blood, the weight of an oak branch in his hand and terror shooting sharp through his heart, the cold lifeless eyes of his brother and father staring back at him from a ground strewn with Dwarvish corpses.

“I would not,” Thorin said, sharply. “Not for all the mithril in all the Misty Mountains.”

“Ah, but these Orcs are not in the Misty Mountains,” said Gandalf. “Hum! I had rather hoped I could persuade you.”

“You cannot,” snapped Thorin curtly, stuffing the rest of the bread in his mouth and standing hastily up from the table. “And you will not. I am a Dwarf and a King, and my father has charged me to take care of our people. If you have any _useful_ news, you may find me in Belegost.”

He paid his tab and stormed off, and believed that to be the end of the matter.

Clearly, he had been very, very wrong.

\---

“You may as well eat something,” Thorin grunted reluctantly, because he could see the smallest Hobbits gravitating helplessly toward his abandoned bread and cheese. Thorin knew all too well the look of starvation, and it had plainly been many days since any of these children had any food.

“Oh!” Baggins said, pleased, and went pink right up to his hairline. “Oh, thank you! I don’t suppose- well, you wouldn’t like us to cook for you, would you? As a kind of thank-you, I mean, I don’t mean to malign your hospitality, of course, I- here, Hamfast, do get _down_ from there- Dear me- no, Primula, _don’t_ -”

Even as he spoke, six separate non-Primula Hobbits had already vanished in the direction of Thorin’s food cupboard, and crashing noises had begun sounding from over by the fire, where one of the larger hobbits seemed to be appropriating a seventeen-karat silver-encrusted helm for use as a soup pot. Thorin could already see black burns licking up the sides, cracking and warping the filigree.

The commission from that helm was meant to have fed Thorin’s sister and nephews for a month and a half.

Thorin could feel a headache coming on.

\---

“They came from the East,” said Thain Baggins, after supper. Baggins had ignored the two lone, rickety chairs in favor of squatting cross legged on the ground, his back against Thorin’s forge, getting the iron all muddy and adding a layer of soot to his own messy curls. The other Hobbits had scattered around him haphazardly, interrupting and chattering with a total lack of respect for their leader.

Frankly, Thorin couldn’t really blame them. He had never seen a creature less deserving of kingship.

“It was a party of orcs – a whole army of orcs, really, horribly scarred and huge and all of them with armor. No one heard them coming. Half of the warriors rode wargs, and more wargs came like silent ghosts before their troops. They started in Tuckborough, the night before Mersday, and they traveled west across our Shire faster than fire or wind, burning the fields before them and slaughtering the Hobbits.

“We sounded the horn-call of Buckland – I hear old Waldy Cotton died sounding it – but even once our Bounders were out of bed and armed, it was no good. They were too many. Buckland Hall was razed to the ground, and the earth salted. They dug up smials, and poured burning oil down chimneys; salted the ground, and sent Warg-packs after any who tried to run or swim to safety. They slaughtered fauntlings in their beds, and mothers and gentlehobbits with their nightclothes still on. By dawn of that first day, all the Took family had perished – possibly, within the first hour of battle - and then they moved on through Buckland, and then the Farthings. Donnamira is the last of the Tooks now, because she was away visiting relations, and little Primula is the last Brandybuck living.”

Thain Baggins's eyes drifted over to the elderly Hobbit in the corner, the scarred one with the tattered lacy ribbons tied to the end of her cane, and to the axe-loving child-Hobbit curled down by her old, bare, wrinkly feet, and he drew in a deep, slow breath.

Thorin drew a breath along with him. It was a grim tale this Baggins told, a grim, too-familiar one, and it hurt Thorin's heart to hear it. The look in the eyes of that girl-Hobbit when she heard the word "Brandybuck" was almost too much to bear, and so he turned his face away to stare into the fire.

“I am sorry you have had your homeland taken, if this is indeed what happened to you all. But I, too, have lost a homeland, and I and my people have few resources left to share. I do not see how one lone dwarf can be of any help to you.”

“The Orc did not come intending to take our _homeland_ ,” snapped Thain Baggins, and Thorin was surprised to discover that this Hobbit was shaking not from fear, but from anger. “They came to take _us_. They had  come to _hunt_ us. Some of the Bracegirdles said that they left gold and coins lying loose in our houses, good food and fresh-brewed ale standing. When we fled, they pursued us to the edge of the Shire and beyond into the wild. In Lithe the orc-leader roared from the high market-tower that it was his sworn duty to slaughter us and he would not rest until the smallest, least fauntling among us had been wiped from the face of Middle-Earth.”

Thorin stared. The Hobbits’ strange tale, never more than half-believable, had just become truly insane. Why would anyone want to exterminate _Hobbits_? Thain Baggins, as if sensing his disbelief, skewered him with a grim look.

“The first three Thains after Isengrim thought we could fight them. The four after that didn’t even try escaping, they- it was as if they were waiting to die. The orcs strode through the Shire like butchers among livestock, calling for 'Brandybuck' and 'Took' and 'Baggins' and shooting anything that moved, and they met no resistance. We were not even able to kill off the weakest and smallest of their warg-packs.”

“How did _you_ make it here, then?” Thorin asked, intrigued despite himself. This Hobbit looked barely capable of resisting a wild pony, much less an army of ravenous Orcs.

“I led the others North,” Baggins says wearily. “We- we knew we could not get children and- and cripples over the Great Downs as far as Bree, and in any case it was that direction the Orc had first come from. The whole sky in that direction was black with smoke by the third day of attack. I don’t know what happened in the South, but no Hobbit nor fauntling had been seen coming from Southfarthing for over a week _before_ the Orc reached Eastfarthing. We dared not venture there. Nor could we go directly West; there was too much open country. We are not fighters; our strengths are in hiding, being quick and light and small. So we took to the hills, in twos and threes, and I told everyone to meet up at the base of the Blue Mountains as soon as we could possibly gather ourselves back together again. If we were ever to take back our homeland, I knew we needed somebody who could teach us to fight. And so we thirteen left the others behind and went ahead to look for help.”

Which did not, Thorin noticed, explain how Thain Baggins had been able to lead them all North in the first place. Or where the rest of the Hobbits were, apart from these thirteen. Or how Baggins had gotten twelve Hobbits – five of them children – all the way to Belegost without getting killed by pursuing orcs. 

“And _then_ Bilbo decided to listen to _Gandalf_ ,” Lobelia sniffed, “and here we all are.”

“Mr. Gandalf makes excellent fireworks for a ha’penny conjurer, you know,” said Holman reproachfully. “Even if he isn’t – quite – respectable.”

“Gandalf has been a great help to us,” Thain Baggins said firmly, in the tone of someone repeating a very old argument. “He healed the fauntlings, and he spoke with me about pleading my case to Lord Elrond, and even of calling up some great Elf-warriors to help keep us safe.”

Thorin would scoff at the idea of Elf-warriors giving aid to anybody, if he were not too busy trying to wrap his mind around the idea of the most powerful wizard in the Near East being described as a _ha-penny conjurer_.

“But Gandalf left us,” protested Hamfast, looking obstinate and unhappy. “He ran off, in the night, and left us with no one but this _Dwarf_ to go to!”

From Halfred’s tone, the latter was clearly a greater insult than the former by far.

“Gandalf the Grey has also been a sometime friend to my people,” said Thorin slowly. “I have often found his actions inscrutable, and his motives obscure. I think I can find it in me to believe that part of your tale, at least.”

“Of course Gandalf is a friend,” said Baggins, looking as if it were offensive even to contemplate the alternative. “He _must_ have sent us somewhere good, and helpful. He knows that you are a very great warrior, or he would not have sent us to you.”

Yes, Thorin thought, and he also knows I am a dispossessed, exiled ruler with two young nephews upon whom I dote, who hates orcs and loves justice, and who knows what it is like to face losses such as yours. He knew that I would not be able to say no to you.

Thorin hated being _managed_.

“So,” he snarled, barely managing to keep from pounding the floor in his ire, “I am to do the wizard’s dirty-work, then, am I? I do not like this plan of Gandalf’s at _all_.”

Baggins looked _broken_.

“Oh,” he said. “I- suppose you would not help. It is a lot to ask, I know.”

“That thrice-cursed _wizard_ should be helping you,” Thorin corrected. He could feel the heat rising on his cheeks with fury. “He should never have sent you to me. This is not my fight, nor am Gandalf’s to command. I am the King of Durin’s Folk, I am no petty foot-soldier or mercenary to be hired hither and yon!”

“Yes, er,” said Baggins, “that’s why he said I should be the one to talk to you, because I’m Thain and you’re King, you know. Only I’m afraid I’m getting it all rather terribly wrong. Oh dear.”

Thorin ignored him, leaping to his feet to bring one great hand slamming down against the anvil’s surface so hard the metal rang.

“What, am I to go under contract and be promised a fourteenth share in your venture’s profit? The blood of my forefathers runs deeper than the clear pools of starlight in the Dimril Dale!”

“You, er, you _could_ have a share in our venture’s profit, if you wanted,” Baggins offered tentatively. “For myself, I would gladly give half the Shire in exchange for your aid. It is a large land, and we do not have so very many Hobbits to fill it up anymore. Er. I know you, um, you said your people were homeless too-”

“EREBOR is my home!”

Yes, _Erebor_ , and the audacity of this puny fear-struck Halfling in suggesting any green hill could ever compare to the great hallowed halls of his forefathers was nigh unthinkable. Rage filled Thorin, black roaring rage like he had only felt once or twice before in all his lifetime, the compound of a thousand Men spitting at his feet, a thousand Thranduils turning aside, the mockery and hatred and scorn of a thousand Elves and Men and Hobbits and-

When he came back to himself, he found that all the Hobbits had gone white-faced, and every one of them except Thain Baggins had taken a large step back away. He was on his feet with his knife in hand, gripping a – he looked down – gripping an old fire-iron in front of him, as if it were a shield.

...As if it were an old oak branch.

“I do not know where Erebor may be,” said Thain Baggins, low and quiet, “but if you get me my Shire back, I will help get you your Dwarf-land. I swear it on my mother’s grave.”

It was so ridiculous an oath that the anger drained out of Thorin in an instant, leaving him dumbstruck by the sheer absurdity.

“ _You_? What could _you_ do to help reclaim Erebor? You could not even reach it, weak as you are; you would have to be rescued a thousand times over from here to the slopes of the Lonely Mountain.”

Baggins’s spine snapped straight. “Now see here, I may be a gentlehobbit and a Baggins, but I am not so pitiful as all _that_! My mother was the wildest daughter of the Old Took himself, I’ll have you know, and-”

“You do not even know _why_ the Lonely Mountain is no longer mine,” Thorin scoffed, and felt the scowl on his face turning mean. “Tell me, Hobbit, do you think you could slay a dragon?”

Baggins jumped so hard he nearly fell into the fire.

“Slay a _what_?”

“A dragon,” Thorin said, with no small degree of relish, tossing his knife and poker aside. “A great fire-drake of the North. Smaug the Terrible, they called him, and he slaughtered our people with smoke and fire, talon and fang, and his armor is impenetrable as diamond and he flies on wings as far across as one of your farthings, and he has been sleeping inside my mountain on a pile of treasure for over a hundred and fifty years. My own father lost his life attempting to slay him.”

“Well.” Baggins trembled a bit, visibly, and swallowed very hard. “Well. I, um. I do think a dragon might take me a little while to deal with.”

“Just a _little_ while,” said Thorin dryly.

“But,” Baggins continued, an unexpectedly serious expression in his eyes, “I am very small.”

Thorin paused.

“… What?”

“I said,” Baggins repeated primly, “I am very small. And quiet. And, er, generally quite good at sneaking around things. I dare say I could probably sneak up to your dragon, even if I wouldn’t know what to do with him afterward. And, you know, there may be a vulnerable spot _somewhere_ , even if it is only in his wings or his eyes or his belly-”

“You cannot _seriously_ mean to fight a dragon to secure my aid,” Thorin said disbelieving.

Baggins’s determined face wobbled, but righted itself. “I will do whatever I must to get our Shire back.”

“It is a kind thought, Thain Baggins, but the thing is quite impossible. You might as well promise to retake the mines of Khazad-Dum.”

“Why,” interrupted the stoutest Hobbit, Egad or Eggleton or something. “What took the mines of Khazad-Dum away? Was it a bigger dragon?”

“Orcs,” Thorin answered, face grim. “Thousands of them. Orcs, and Durin’s Bane.”

To his utter astonishment, the fat Hobbit brightened.

“Oh! Well, in that case, you really _had_ better come and help with our Shire. After all, there are such a terrible lot of orcs there, and they must have come out of _somewhere_. Perhaps there are fewer orcs left in your Kaza-place now, and once you have killed all of ours you will be able to go back there and kill them all too. Or haven't you dwarves thought of _that_?”

Thorin’s chest seized.

They could not know what they said. They could not know what such words meant, they were as ignorant and selfish as children. Yet he wanted nothing better in that moment than to rip the skin of the Hobbit’s stupid soft triumphant-smiling face off his skull. He felt orc-vicious, and weary to the bone.

“It is impossible,” Thorin repeated, lowly, sinking down to sit on top of his table. “To lead you into battle – any of you – would be unthinkable. You know nothing of war.”

“No.” Thain Baggins agreed, swallowing hard. “We do not. But I know enough to know when we have no alternative.”

Thorin _knew_ that expression. It was the expression of a leader who had looked upon the face of hell, and known there was no way to go but forward; who despaired for his people and was powerless to save them.

And, in the end, it was that which decided Thorin. These hobbits plainly knew nothing of him, nor his people, for all that they came to him with stories of exile and genocide. These hobbits knew nothing about _anything_ ; they were the most harmless creatures imaginable, stupid and selfish and soft. And yet they were being _hunted_ , like animals, like the nûlukhkhazâd.

He stared into the fire. If he did this, he would lose not only the helm and sword, but all this Winter's commissions. Ounces of silver, and maybe some gold; food for Fili and Kili and Dis, and Dis's _baby_ -

“I should not come with you. I should not leave my people alone to go risk my life and their leader in a fight that is not ours.”

Bilbo looked crestfallen.

“Peace, Hobbit!” Thorin boomed. “I said I _should_ not go with you. I did not say I _would_ not.”

“Oh,” Bilbo said, and then his face went very white and he sat down hard. “ _Oh_.”

“Yes. _Oh_.”

“I- th-thank you. Thank you, so much, from the bottom of my heart! I cannot- I do not have the words to tell you how grateful I am. Thank you, Thor- thank you, your majesty! You have all of this Hobbit’s gratitude-”

“And mine,” said Donnamira, and “and mine,” echoed Egbert and Adalbert and Holman and Primula and fat-Hobbit and the three tiniest children. Gundabella said nothing, but her eyes shone bright as diamonds, and Thorin was suddenly made uncomfortable by all the happy hopeful Hobbit faces.

“I am not so great an Orc-killer as all that,” he warned them gruffly. “And I am very old, for a Dwarf. It may be better for you all to lower your expectations.”

Several of the Hobbits looked dubious, and Thorin could see a few of the oldest ones eyeing the axe he had driven into the door.

“Gandalf said there was more to you than met the eye,” Bilbo said firmly. “And I certainly hope he was right about that, for I must say you look more like a vagabond than a warrior.”

“And _you_ look more like a petty-thief or a burglar than a King.”

Bilbo scowled. “I am _not_ a King.”

“A general, then.”

“I’m not a general!”

“Not yet,” said Thorin. “But if you truly wish to retake your Shire, I'm afraid you are going to have to learn.”

**Author's Note:**

> This work is a fusion of book and movie canons, stirred together in a blender of crazy and infused with pure Essence of Broody Dwarf, and will therefore probably contain some continuity errors. Concrit on these is appreciated; I have at best a passing acquaintance with the Silmarillion and last read the Lord of the Rings in the distant days before college, and welcome the input of those fellow-fans who are wiser or more well-read than I.


End file.
